Indications of the Creator; Extracts, Bearing Upon Theology, from the History and the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1846. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... preface to the second edition. In the Preface to the First Edition of these ExTracts, I have stated that they were published in the hope of interesting many persons who would be unlikely to read the History and the Philosophy of Science, from which they are taken. At the present day, when the opinions and conjectures of men of science are so widely circulated among general readers, it is highly desirable that such readers should also receive the lessons which are taught by a survey of the whole field of science. And though it is difficult to convey effectually, in any summary way, lessons which are the result of a long study of history and philosophy, I trusted that on some important points warnings might be given which might not be without their use. It appeared especially important, at the present time, to teach this lesson: --that, according to the best scientific views hitherto obtained, the Origin of Man, and the Origin of Life upon the earth, were events of a different order from the common course of nature. The Origin of Man is the Origin of Language, of Law, of Social Relations, of Intellectual and Social and Moral Progress; and though in all these characteristics of humanity we can trace a constant series of changes and movements, we can discern in them no evidence of a beginning homogeneous with the present order of changes. If Science does not positively teach that man was placed upon the earth by a special act of his Creator, she at least shews no difficulty in the way of such a belief. She leaves us free to hold that the placing of man upon the earth was, not an ordinary step in the natural course of the world; but an extraordinary step, the beginning t/of a providential and moral course of the world. She negatives the doctrine that men grew out of ...